Today In WTF: Bill Comparing Women To Livestock Passes

Seriously, ladies, what is this fuckery? As we reported earlier, a Georgia bill criminalizing abortion after 20 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest, has passed Georgia’s Senate, and is expected to be signed into law by Republican Governor Nathan Deal.

This bill has affectionately been referred to as the “women as livestock” bill, after Representative Terry England noted that farmers often have to “deliver calves, dead or alive,” so therefore it shouldn’t be that difficult for a woman carrying a dead fetus to carry it to full-term.

Rep. England, when not comparing women to livestock, spends his time commending cheerleading squads for their hard work. On February 12, he presented a resolution commending the Winder-Barrow Cheer Doggs on winning the coed division of the 2011-2012 GHSA Cheerleading State Championships.

There are a couple cases in which women are allowed to have abortions after 20 weeks — in cases where the fetus is considered “medically futile.” In order to be declared medically futile, the fetus must be diagnosed with an irreversible chromosomal or congenital anomaly “incompatible with sustaining life after birth.” But that’s the only exception. The bill makes no exception for women with mental illness, or women for whom having a baby is a cause of such great pain that they would inflict pain on themselves rather than carry the pregnancy to term. In effect, what it says is that women’s lives aren’t as important as the lives of the unborn.

The passage of this bill gives me pause. Seriously, it’s 2012. How is this even up for discussion? And if we are going to allow these debates to happen, how is it possible that we continue to lose? [Ms. Magazine]